


ôba là vem ele

by KilltheRhythm



Category: Football RPF
Genre: 5 + 1 things sorta but not really, Fluff sorta, M/M, Slice of Life, Slow Burn, Wow worst forward I’ve ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-09 14:46:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13483707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KilltheRhythm/pseuds/KilltheRhythm
Summary: Rob meets Calum. Things spiral from there.





	ôba là vem ele

It starts with cooking. Or specifically, that Rob can't. Everything he touches magically burns. It's not his fault, really. He'd been trying to make some scones, but he'd left them in for an extra minute or thirty and now smoke poured out of the oven much like a fire breathing dragon. Not only was it a horrific mess but the fire truck pulled in and now he was getting a lecture on fire safety from an old bearded man who more closely resembled Santa Claus's leather daddy brother than anything else. A lovely Monday afternoon. 

And if Rob wasn't already unlucky enough on his one day off from training, Mrs Scaramucci, his landlady, told him that he had to leave by the end of the month. Reason: too dangerous. Rob had never considered himself dangerous before. Unfortunately, his cooking was. 

A small sliver of hope arises in the form of his new favorite human, Calum Chambers. Calum is a few months older than he is and a few centimeters shorter and also has an apparent heart of gold as he is completely willing to let Rob be his roommate. He knows Calum from Arsenal, but only somewhat; being with Calum's loan status and the general distance from London to Middlesbrough. Now all of his things are put in a yard sale and the remnants are at the local thrift shop or being UHaul'd into his new home. Calum drives himself down and smiles at Rob and rolls his sleeves up, ready to unpack. 

They eat Indian food that night, at the table. Rob looks at Calum's house-- his house now too. Calum will be gone for a while, still all the way up in Middlesbrough, north enough to be like home to Rob. That makes Rob a little sad, the fondness in his chest built up mostly from preseason training with Calum and the handful of U21 games they'd played together. He tells himself that they'll text. The season was almost over anyways. 

 

Or maybe it starts in Manchester, where he grew up. Rob didn't really live in Manchester, more Stalybridge, but no one knew where that was so it was Manchester, except without the large population and the fun things to do and big schools where not everyone knew your name. So to everyone else it was Manchester, but to Rob it was just a rural town who's population probably peaked last century or something. Everyone knows everyone and everyone knows Rob, and the rest of his family for that matter. Anonymity does not exist.

Farming isn't really Rob's thing, and neither are the two local pastimes: brass music and sheep rearing. He sticks to playing football, dreaming of playing for United someday. He's got a poster or two of their's in his room, though lately it'd been less because he idolized the men and more because he wanted to sleep with them. He wondered when other people would start catching on to that, but every other lad in the greater Manchester area in 2011 had a poster of Rio Ferdinand or someone else, so he fit right in. 

That in itself had begun the year before, though it is murky at best in his mind. He doesn't say the word, because some sort of logic dictated that saying the word would make it permanent, that it wasn't a phase. He wouldn't say it until a year later, though he'd known the whole time. 

(But if he were to be theatrical with the whole thing, it would've happened during his family's summer trip to Italy, where he got to oggle at what seemed like a never ending parade of hot men. Rob stared at the guys. His sister stared at him. And, because it would be the version he told people and not what happened in real life, he'd have gotten to make out with one of them, probably named Mario or Luigi or something. That then would've been when he realized. 

In reality, Rob maybe kissed an Antonio, and the validity of his Italianness was dubious at best. (He probably actually realized when he awkwardly got a hard on for James Bond and not one of the innumerable ladies during an especially over the top sex scene, and not at all during the family vacation.)) And his sister knew only because he told her a month or two after their trip to Italy, stumbling over every second word. He was scared of telling anyone, though he didn't really know why. 

She, he could be open to her, sitting on the back porch of the house, watching the idyllic sheep covered landscape of what was the world's most English English town. She was supportive, underneath the cheap-shot gay puns and jokes of him being a "power bottom", but he wouldn't dare tell anyone else, not when there was still a chance at being professional. Professional players didn't give Felix Brener from algebra class a handjob in the restroom during a house party. And Rob wanted to be a professional more than anything else.

 

Or it could've started in Poland. Calum is his roommate here, much like back home in London. Rob spends pretty much every waking moment with Calum, for better or for worse, though it seemed more likely to be worse; he couldn't get the other man out of his mind. They're closer now, a shared breadth of inside jokes and secret handshakes and early morning training sessions. Between chaotic team breakfasts and hellish training sessions there is just enough downtime to begin exploring Poland. 

Poland, unfortunately, isn't all that exciting, or at least the parts of Poland they'd visited. Calum complains of this, generally when buried deep into Rob's shoulder as they'd take the bus back to the hotel from yet another 'failed' excursion (Rob would do his best to not wrap an arm around his friend, because Calum didn't swing that way and Poland wasn't exactly the most approving country). Their complete and total illiteracy in the polish language was no doubt a further hinderance, as Ben Chillwell had pointed out during breakfast, right before Calum expertly launched an entire blackberry directly into his eye. Rob's directional sense (limited at best) and Calum's map comprehension abilities (ranging from really fucking bad to generally abysmal) did not help better the situation. 

"Oh shut up, it could be worse," Rob tells Calum for possibly the twentieth time. In this particular situation Calum's complaining had dragged on from the bus trip all the way to now, where they sat on Rob's bed, half-watching a questionable rerun of Will and Grace. 

Calum does not remove himself from where he is currently melting into Rob's side; his voice is half muffled by the shirt and shoulder. Rob tries it his best to ignore it so his face won't flush red. "You grew up in a town that had more sheep than people, I don't think you get to decide what exciting is."

Rob slides just enough so Calum slips off of his side and, in being completely boneless, falls off the bed. "No more human pillow for you, bitch."

Calum groans, rubbing his side in pain. He flops back down on the carpeted floor, making no move to get up, instead spreading his arms and legs out like a human starfish. He's wearing tight-ish grey sweatpants and a cotton long sleeved shirt, because Poland isn't that warm, even in the summer, but the shirt rides up a bit-- no, a lot. Rob is staring. He's trying his best to not, but he hasn't gotten laid in what seems like forever and Calum is pretty good looking. 

It doesn't help that Calum is absolutely clueless, currently flopping his legs about on the floor and deeply sighing, trying to get Rob's attention. Rob's attention is already certainly there, but Calum doesn't seem to notice. 

"Oi!" Pickford's voice is completely audible through the walls (which are, forgettably, paper-thin). "Quit your fucking! I can hear!"

Calum, now still on the floor, goes beet red. Rob is equally mortified. They endure a moment of eye contact, and then the gaze switches to the wall they'd heard Pickford through. 

After a moment of silence they both laugh, Calum freely and Rob awkwardly. Sure it was a funny joke, but not when Calum had been creeping into his thoughts lately in more adult ways than he'd like. He could see it in his head now. When Calum goes and showers thirty minutes later Rob lies stomach down in bed, swallowing guilt and wishing he hadn't ever thought of him that way. 

It doesn't help. The image won't leave his mind. Rob tries to think about unsexy thoughts. He feels guilty that night, and guilty the next day, and even guiltier the week after that. It doesn't leave. Rob hates to admit it, but he has a crush. 

 

It could've started during pride. Calum, in all of his innocence, suggests that they go to the parade. They consisting of their small group of them two, Alex (Iwobi), Alex (the Ox) and Carl (mostly because of Alex). Carl and the Ox laugh and say 'that's a great idea,' but they do their own thing most of the time and Rob instantly knows he wouldn't see them there. Iwobi half-asses an anecdote about dinner with his girlfriend's aunt's grandma, and this leaves only Rob. 

Rob wants to say no. Calum gives him puppy eyes. Rob says yes. His shorter friend either ignores or is completely unaware that Rob has a frightened expression on his face for the rest of training. Wilshere tells him he looks like he's seen a ghost, and then asks him if he needs a doctor. Emi says he's so pale he's translucent. Rob feels petrified. 

During the drive home, Rob grips the steering wheel with tight white knuckles. He'd been to maybe one pride parade in his life, tops. Meanwhile, Calum jammed to some Ed Sheeran in the passenger seat. If there'd been anything off between them since the U21 euros, he certainly hadn't noticed. 

Calum makes dinner that evening, while Rob tidies up the house. It's a good system, mostly because it keeps Rob far, far away from the kitchen. He wonders if they spent too much time together. Maybe if it was less he still wouldn't be harboring some strange infatuation for his best friend. Damn, you really need to get laid, his brain tells him, or better yet, get a boyfriend. From the next room over, Calum whistles along to Time Warp. Calum is not going to be your boyfriend.

While they eat, Calum drills him with questions about pride. Did he think it'd be fun? Had he been before? What should they wear? Rob gulps and wonders if somehow Calum knows that he's gay. Was he coming off as too camp? Did his voice have that vocal fry, were his wrists too limp, was his taste in clothing flamboyant? He'd spent years and years in fear of being just that. Rob's response comes off snappier than expected. They argue. 

Now, sitting on his bed, watching Netflix, while Calum watched the same show in the living room, Rob wonders if he'd been unreasonable. Certainly Calum wasn't trying to pressure him into coming out. And if he wasn't suspicious then, maybe he was now, because of his reaction to the whole pride thing. Or Calum saw him as a bigot. He's not really sure which is worse. 

In the week leading up to pride Rob is far more stressed than he's been for any match. Calum had tried to give him the cold shoulder after his argument, but it lasted for only a morning. He's already back to bouncing around him, smiling like a hyperactive puppy. It's adorable, and Rob doesn't know how much more of it he can take. 

Tensions ride on a high for him. The stress dreams he gets flip flop between nightmarish and strangely realistic. He has a dream where he drowns in a pit of flowers in the Arsenal dressing room, and another where he's chased by a flock of sheep through his hometown. The worst he gets is the night before pride. In it, he's dating Calum. They do everything that a happy normal couple does, which admittedly isn't really much different-- except for in the bedroom, which Rob shamefully will remember for a long while. He wakes up, the memory of such a normal dream still in his head, the thought of Calum sprawled out next to him in bed and feels immense guilt. 

Rob runs a little faster, tackles a little harder in training that day. He avoids Calum a little too, for good measure. Pride is today, and he isn't feeling proud in the least bit. Granit asks him what's wrong, and Rob shirks the question entirely. Sead glowers at him from behind Granit, clearly unhappy with the situation. Rob isn't either. 

That evening he stares at his wardrobe, not sure what kind of message he wanted to send. He felt like a dumb teenager all over again. The shorts he ends up wearing make two men wolf whistle at him during the parade, but he doesn't feel too scandalous. Calum dresses as normally as he does, if not more heterosexual. Rob sighs, determined to be comfortable tonight. 

Comfortable means avoiding directly looking at the hot men in booty shorts in the parade and also avoiding the Enrique Iglesias lookalike shimmying next to him for half a damn hour. Calum, meanwhile, is swaying side to side, having the time of his life dancing to whatever deep club music is blasting from each float. Comfortable also means trying to stand in a way that hides the fact that he has a hard on after one of the float goers dances on him.

Maybe an hour later Alex (Iwobi) texts him asking if he wanted to meet up with "the rest of the lads." Calum answers yes for them. With the help of google maps they eventually make their way to a gay bar that Rob has (embarrassingly) been to (many) more times than once. Alex and Alex and Jenko and Granit and Sead and Danny Welbz, the man himself, are all sitting at a table in the far corner, cheap beers and shitty girly drinks all around them. Jenko waves. Calum waves back. 

Rob tries to communicate to the one bartender he knows to act like he's never seen him through elaborate hand gestures, but she doesn't get the idea at all. It doesn't matter though; Calum is oblivious. The rest of the men at the table were too drunk to notice either way. Alex Iwobi glances at him a few times, but more in a way that says he has absolutely no idea what he's gotten himself into and less in an accusatory way. He almost looks as worried as Rob feels. 

It doesn't matter, Rob is still nervous, the type of nervous where you accidentally order three more margaritas than you should and get embarrassingly drunk. Sead, who was more beef than man and therefore could definitely hold his alcohol better (if he was drinking, but he wasn't), looked at him with a sense of alarm, but Rob tells him "don't worry about it." Unfortunately he's too drunk for that to come out convincingly, and he maybe slurs some of the words. 

Sead actually looks a little alarmed in general. It is August, the season has not started yet and his new teammates in a new city who speak a new language are all in a completely irresponsible state and had just taken him to a gay bar. There is a male stripper mere meters away from his face. Both he and Rob were trying not to look at the stripper, but for different reasons. On the other hand, Danny was facing the man straight on, and making Alex Iwobi do the same.

"Welbz, I really feel like this is a poor choice," Alex says, squirming. Danny has his hands on either side of the younger man's head, forcing him to face the stripper head on. 

Danny laughs. "This is pride, Alex. Pride."

Rob shifts in his seat, crossing and recrossing his legs. He wonders who's paying attention to him. It isn't Jenko or Alex (Oxlade-Chamberlain), because they're wrapped up in their own conversation, and it isn't Danny or Alex (Iwobi) considering that the former is telling a stripper to give a lap dance to the latter. Granit is currently judging the waiter's outfit intensely and Sead just looks confused. That leaves Calum.

"Hey," Calum whispers. Rob doesn't hear him. Calum frowns for a moment, and realizes that there is no way to have a conversation at a whisper, let alone normal volume. He yells "hey" again. 

"What's up?" Rob says, trying his best to come off as composed. He thinks he might see Dele Alli out of the corner of his eye, though his main focus was Calum and the stripper terrorizing poor Alex in the background. 

Calum turns around to stare at the dancer that Danny has gotten to clamber on top of  Alex Iwobi for a second, and then someone past Rob. His face screws up. "Is that Dele Alli?"

Rob nods, then yawns. He's tired. He leans on Calum, who he realizes is a lot drunker than he lets on. He almost feels bad for Alex, who is still pleading with Danny. Not a sight he was keen on seeing for much longer.  "You wanna go back home?"

"Yeah. Let's go."

Rob nods, getting up and looking at everyone one last time. He makes his way out of the bar and reaches into his pocket for his car keys. At this moment he remembers both that he is drunk and that he didn't drive here. His keys aren't there. He turns to Calum. 

"How did we get here?"

Calum shrugs. "Let's uber home."

The uber ride is boring save for the fact that Rob feels daring and slides his hand up Calum's thigh. Calum either doesn't notice or doesn't mind. The uber driver definitely doesn't notice either, considering that she's around 80 years old and incredibly focused at driving at exactly the speed limit, down to the hundredth of a kilometer. She has no idea who they are, and tells them to tell their parents that they got home safe. Calum giggles at that. 

"You still look good," Calum tells him when they get inside. Rob blushes. He doesn't know how to respond. Calum speaks before he can, though. "You have a good pride?"

"Yeah," Rob says. His brain tells him Don't look at Calum. Don't look at Calum but he doesn't listen. Confetti falls out of his hair, and he'd wonder how it got there except he's more preoccupied with Calum, who has flopped backwards into the couch. 

Calum smiles up at him like he should come and sit with him, though he's taking up all of the couch by stretching his legs out. Rob hops on top of him anyways. Calum makes an 'oof' sound. 

This suddenly reminds him of the maybe dozen lazy hook ups he's had in his life, with guys he maybe only half knows and will never talk to after that night. Except he knows Calum well. It doesn't stop him from doing what he's been thinking about for months now, though. He cups Calum's face and leans in and Calum does absolutely nothing to stop him. Rob's thoughts are moving too fast to really think about the gravity of this situation, the consequences of making out with your best friend on your couch, until he's half-hard in his pants and trying to unbutton Calum's shirt. Calum's hands trail down his back and Rob's hat is somewhere far away by now. 

Is this really what you should be doing? Rob's brain asks him. There's no way he could apply any morality to this, to trying to hook up with your straight friend and roommate when you're both drunk. His face still burned a little from Calum's beard. It's not about what you want to do, but what's the right thing to do. 

Yeah, no, fuck that his brain says a moment later, when Calum's hand slides further down, into the front of his pants. 

Rob wakes up that morning feeling tired, guilty and hungover. He usually felt these three things after a night out, but the guilt nagged at him before he was even fully awake. It was different than the usual guilt he felt following a late night. He opens his eyes, feels the abrasive beams of sunlight coming from between the blinds and shuts them. Ouch. He hurt. 

Eyes still closed, he began to remember what happened last night. Pride. Confetti. Gay bar. Calum. Fuck, Calum, his brain reminds him. He turns around in bed and stares at the other man, still asleep. He knows for a matter of fact that their clothes are still in the living room.

It is incredibly awkward that morning. Calum makes them pancakes and they eat them in complete silence. Rob almost wishes they had training the next day so he could avoid the situation. Gauging from the look in Calum’s eyes, he feels the same too. They both know, and know that the other knows. Somehow that only makes things worse.

Calum doesn’t ever mention anything like “huh Rob, didn’t know you swung that way” or “haha remember that time I sucked your dick, mate?” so Rob figures everything is fine and dandy. Calum didn’t really have the heart in him to keep things awkward for longer than a day or two. He just sticks to the routine, and knows things will be ok again soon.

 

“Oi, get your legs off of me,” Rob harrumphs, but makes no move to shake Calum’s legs off of him. “You’re crushing me.”

“Crushing you, am I?” Calum grins. Rob isn’t looking at his face, but he knows he is. Calum then pulls his legs off of Rob, and replaces them with his entire torso.

Rob looks down at Calum, trying his best to force a stern frown. He can’t. Calum starts cackling, and he does too. He hasn’t felt this relaxed in what felt like years. It’s nice; Calum is in his lap, there’s some meaningless sports event on the TV screen (women’s lacrosse World Cup it says in neat little letters at the bottom) and his new little dog not too far away. This is peace.

He supposes that this is what he’d been hoping for since he’d gone to Italy with his family, since he’d bought that Rio Ferdinand poster when he was little. He’d been hoping for it, though he hadn’t known what it was at the time. A successful career? A loving boyfriend? A general sense of peace?

Calum snakes his arms around Rob’s shoulders and smiles at him again. He wonders if Calum expected this when he was little, wondered what he’d hoped for all those nights in his late adolescence. Was it sharing a small apartment with a significant other? Playing for Arsenal. It was almost certainly the latter, though he probably wouldn’t imagine ever dating Rob.

The golden light of the last few hours of daytime lights up Calum’s features. It’d be a pretty picture save for the fact that Calum is trying his best to make hilariously unsuggestive faces at him. “God, stop doing that. It’s nasty.”

“Yeah, but I bet you still wanna make out with me,” Calum beams up at him, already pulling him down. Rob smiles despite the kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> leave me a comment my dudes


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